Today, I’m removing my simple “professional” personal placeholder site and replacing it with this blog. Eventually I’ll put more info here about me, what I do, who I am, etc, but for now, it’s going to be this blog. I’ve tried blogging several times before, and it always flames out after a while. What I’ve found though, after these last several months of COVID, social turmoil, and general societal unrest, is that I need a place to dump out thoughts in a bit more of a long-form fashion. I tweet (@jasonmonster), but that’s micro-blogging into the void of crazy Twitter world. I’m most snarky there, I don’t really hold back on my political opinions, and it’s generally not the most well thought-out stream of consciousness. Add to that the character limit, and there’s no nuance, just popping off like you would do at a party with the third beer in your hand. I also use Facebook, but I’ve learned that everytime I get into any sort of substantive discussion on Facebook, it falls apart quick and I end up thinking poorly of someone that’s supposed to be a friend — or worse, family. It’s a good place for keeping up with people’s lives, but when anything remotely political, or societal, or consequential in any sort of way comes along, it’s a cesspool and to be frank, I liked it better when I didn’t know exactly what all my “friends” think about every issue. Just because everyone has a voice doesn’t mean it’s good for everyone to have a voice.
For professional networking there’s LinkedIn. It’s like Facebook, but stuffier and full of self-promotion. Then there’s Instagram, for photos of all your food and vacations and pets. I enjoy all of these things for different reasons, but none of them provide the outlet I’m looking for to dump out and process various things in a more nuanced and thought-out way. Additionally, I have very little creativity happening in my life and I can literally feel my brain starting to atrophy. That’s not a good feeling.
I’m attempting to post at least weekly, if not more. There aren’t going to be any sort of specific directions, or themes, just whatever needs to get out of my brain. Could be political, could be philosophical, could be business, could be personal, could even be sports. I’ll come up with some ground rules to govern any discussion that may or may not happen.
It’s a strange reversal… first it was blogging, then everything got reduced to the micro-blogging social platforms. And somewhere along the way, something was lost. What good is a social platform if you’re constantly self-censoring to avoid inevitable conflict?
Here’s to exercising the brain muscle a bit. Our world could use a bit more of that. Well, my world could at least.